LETTER OF THE DAY: Brexit - ‘When politics comes through the door, truth flies out the window’

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The trouble with the Brexit debate is that people are inevitably content to talk past each other, not with each other.

No-one knows the outcome of the current Brexit negotiations (What outcome? Michael Urry, News December 12) because they are mired in a shameless, disingenuous brand of politics, not rational or evidence based on decision making.

As I’ve said many times before, when politics comes through the door, truth flies out the window.

It’s really all about the parlous future of one particular political party and a succession of weak leaders falling to take control and slapping down the Europe-hating ideologues on their back benches.

It allows them and the Brexit public to indulge in their own facts and fantasies, which they are quite content to adhere to despite all evidence to the contrary.

In answer to Michael, I’m quite clear about the Brexit I don’t want.

At times such as this it’s a sound idea to take a few steps back and look at what is before us – that we are about to spend £40bn or more on securing a trade deal that is inferior to the unimpeded and lucrative access to the single market – the largest and most prosperous in the world – with no great hope of securing alternative markets for British goods and, more crucially, services in other parts of the world.

All the impartial research and evidence indicates Brexit will wreck jobs, divide families and fail to carry consensus even in the UK.

Brexit, so-called, is shaping up to become an increasingly divisive, unpleasant and painful experience.

Having seen the government back down, and ignominiously concede one red line after another, the only thing that’s obvious is that reality has finally caught up with the rhetoric.

Brexit will wreck jobs, divide families and fail to carry consensus even in the UK. There’s little doubt it will be an unnecessary, unpleasant and painful experience.